The Patients Experience 4

My daughter in law suffered a cornual ectopic pregnancy in July 2010. Although we had heard of Ectopic pregnancies, we presumed they were all the same. No one had ever mentioned Cornual before, Stacey had a scan after suffering severe pain in her abdomen and she was 7 weeks pregnant at the time. We were told the pregnancy was ectopic and would need to remove the embryo and possibly remove the tube.

When Stacey returned from surgery, imagine our delights when we were told the diagnosis was wrong ["possibly a shadow"] and that she was still pregnant. A scan was arranged for the following week just to ensure everything was ok following surgery. Less than a week later Stacey almost lost her life, she had severe internal bleeding from a ruptured fallopian tube. Eventually the Doctors explained that this is a Cornual Ectopic pregnancy and is very rare and difficult to diagnose, whilst I appreciate the difficulty in diagnosing this condition.

I think Doctors should prepare expectant Mothers for this if there has been some kind of previous scare, just make them aware that it’s a possibility. I have been on many web sites since this happened and there never seems to be any mention of it, there needs to be more awareness.

Stacey was extremely poorly and suffered depression following this incident, and had a lot of anger towards the Doctors for not explaining in the first instance the possibilities of Cornual pregnancy; I believe it could have partly been avoided if we were more aware of it.